CHAPTER
3
Subar was not an ethical thief in that he stole not just from the crooked but from anybody, everybody, and whomever he could. Being a true citizen of the Commonwealth, neither did he distinguish among species. If a temptingly gullible intelligence was in possession of something valuable he could safely appropriate for himself, he did not discriminate as to its color, sex, size, shape, number of limbs, language, origin, religion or lack thereof, class, clan, or preferred breathable atmosphere. Robbery-wise, the sixteen-year-old was as egalitarian as they came. Given the opportunity, he would hit an easy target over the head no matter what shape or form that protuberance took. Or if a head was lacking, he was quite happy to bludgeon the appropriate substitute.
Alewev was not the worst district of the huge sprawl that was Malandere City. It was too poor to hold that distinction. Whereas other sections like Gijjmelor and Pandrome had cemented their status as sections of the metropolis that churned out evil as fast as they did credit, Alewev merely sustained a reputation for steady decay. Only occasionally did some exceptional outrage occur there that proved media-worthy.
That was fine with Subar. He was not one of those middle-aged villains whose future was inevitably cut short by a desperate need for publicity. Much more logical, he reasoned, to operate under the scanner, as far away as possible from the attention of sensation-seeking tridee types and the perpetually harried authorities. He had no interest whatsoever in delivering Olympian pronouncements to the municipal media from the confines of one of the city’s overpopulated criminal holding facilities. Getting one’s image on the tridee was a poor trade-off for selective mindwipe.
Besides, having to live in close quarters with his generally worthless, misbegotten relatives was punishment enough.
He jumped the last level from the roof to the street and strutted the final couple of blocks to the baroon. Chaloni, Dirran, Zezula, Missi, and Sallow Behdul were already there, lounging on chairs or vilators on the second-floor deck out front. As always, his gaze was immediately drawn to Zezula. How she got her slender yet ripe self into the garment known as a twyne, much less kept all the strips of dark glistening fabric in place, constituted a demonstration of practical physics that far exceeded in interest anything he had encountered in the course of his occasional limited sojourns into academics. Sparkling like specular hematite, the lengths of black shimmer only emphasized the whiteness of her flesh. She looked, he thought deliciously, like a stick of some particularly exotic candy confection.
Grinning, Chaloni welcomed him with a gentle chiding. “Better roll your tongue back into your mouth, Subar, before somebody steps on it.” The gang leader and Dirran laughed while Sallow Behdul, who rarely showed anything in the way of emotion, dredged a vapid smile from the depths of his gaunt, progeria-afflicted visage.
Subar’s tongue was not protruding in the slightest, much less hanging out, but both young men understood the meaning behind the gang leader’s words. For her part Zezula ignored them both, in the way of those females who are young, beautiful, and aware of it.
Taking care to position himself as gracefully as possible (in case Zezula happened to be paying attention), Subar flopped down onto a mist-lounge and as best he was able affected an air of sophisticated indifference. The pose was a complete sham, of course. Despite his best efforts, the teen possessed as much actual sophistication as the stuff one found washing down street drains. Only Chaloni, two years older and the more wizened for it, had spent enough time outside Alewev to claim such knowledge. That he rarely flaunted his experience was what made his nominal leadership of the group tolerable.
“Have something,” the older boy offered magnanimously.
Subar didn’t hesitate. Having nothing at home, he was not ashamed to succumb to Chaloni’s charity. There was a plate of small, locally made pastries; something purplish red, sweet, and offworld; mung drops; and geltubes filled with dizzle. As the latter sang in his mouth, he helped himself to a glassful of pale blue frolic. Twenty percent alcohol by volume from the bottle, it dissipated to less than 2 percent by the time it reached the stomach. One could get high on it, but never drunk.
On the street below, pedestrians worked their way around slow-moving groundbound vehicles. The throughway was off limits to skimmers, which needed more space in any case in order to maneuver at speeds fast enough to render ascension cost-effective. One-way transparencies lined the sides of office and commercial buildings opposite the baroon, while seemingly weightless porches protruded from the apartments situated higher up. Occasionally a semi-legal flad would drift by, flashing its images and blaring its commercial message. These fled whenever an automated plad showed up in pursuit. Stay outside and observe the street scene long enough, and one was sure to see a municipal plad catch up to and destroy one or more of the illegal aerial advertisements. Those who programmed and sent out the flads counted such destruction against the cost of doing business.
Stimulated by the food and drink, Subar soaked up the familiar clamor of the street and the chatter of his friends in equal measure. There was much nattering of inconsequentialities. Though shorter and stockier than Zezula, Missi conceded nothing to the other girl. Dirran talked as much as any of them, while Sallow Behdul simply sat quietly and listened. Subar chipped in when he had something to add. While he was as argumentative as any of them, he was careful never to directly contradict Chaloni. Subar knew he was smarter than the gang’s leader, and almost as big, but there were mysteries to which the other boy had been exposed that remained closed to him.
Meanwhile, he bided his time and sucked up Chaloni’s largesse. He felt no shame in this. When one has nothing, one takes whatever is offered from whoever offers it. Insurrection is difficult to mount on an empty stomach.
“Who’s got cred this week?” The gang leader sat up, his mist-chair hissing softly beneath him. Dirran immediately handed over his card. While both boys held on to the identification square of their respective chits, Chaloni touched the other boy’s to his own. A transfer was accomplished. The gang leader repeated the process with Zezula, Missi, and Sallow Behdul. He did not even bother to query the youngest member of the group. If not for Chaloni’s munificence, and a rare moment of pity, Subar would not even have a card. In any case, the balance on it rarely read more than zero.
Touching a corner of the card to a receptor on his stimshades, Chaloni scanned his account’s new, uplifted balance. Satisfied, he ordered another bottle of dizzle, a different song this time.
As liquid found its way to waiting, self-chilling glasses, Missi dared to voice a mild protest. “That’s three weeks straight, Chal. I’m tapped. My mother’s gonna have a Morion if she finds out.”
Chaloni shrugged, grinned. “Don’t you secure your account?”
The heftier girl looked away. “Sure, but sometimes she asks to viz the transfer, just to make sure everything’s opto. I can’t keep putting her off forever.” She looked worried. “One of these days she’s gonna ask where the cred fled.”
Chaloni nodded, as if he had expected something like this from Missi all along. “I know I’ve been tapping youls hard lately. And that’s going to be fixed. Come morn after morrow, you’re all going to see your accounts floating higher than zeal on a holiday shrake.”
Dirran was immediately interested. “What you got in mind, Chal? We gonna zlip another quicore?” He was remembering the last time they had boosted a couple of expensive players from a display.
In ancient times, Subar knew, it had been easier. Payment was made with discs of gold and silver metal, or pieces of paper that stood in for cred. Except on the most isolated, backward worlds such mediums of exchange had not existed for hundreds of years. It was hard to be a thief when everything was paid for via a shifting of electrons. Hard, but not impossible. Physical objects still had value. A gun, for example, was always exchangeable for cred.
“I’m ready.” Zezula’s response was a breathy blend of honey and disdain. Her reply could be taken different ways. Sopping it up, Subar’s respiration came a little faster.
“Same here,” grunted Sallow Behdul almost inaudibly.
“No quicore napping. Not this time.” Chaloni’s smile widened, the way it always did when he was preparing to spring some new surprise on them. He was letting the moment linger, savoring the incipient revelation. “Bigger strike. Bigger, and easier.” As he leaned toward them, his smile tightened. “We’re going to scrim a couple of visitors.”
Subar’s gaze shifted immediately to the street below. They had scrimmed pedestrians before, sometimes profitably, sometimes incurring the risk for nothing. You had to be fast and careful, and burrow to cover immediately afterward. Swamped with casework, the municipal authorities tended to relegate crimes of property to the bottom of their overworked agendas. Those crimes that involved assaults on persons drew swifter attention. That was because, Subar knew, a boosted and cleaned vehicle could not complain as easily as an injured citizen.
“Who?” Dirran was asking. “Where?”
“Something special this time. I’ve been scoping it for days. Got it locked down. We’re in, we’re on them, and we’re out. If I’ve evaled it right, everybody’s cred is going to wax max like you haven’t coned it in months.”
Subar was no less intrigued than the others. They edged closer, their concentration now fully fixed on their leader. Well, almost fully. Always hungry, Subar continued to pick at the food while devoting the rest of his attention to Chaloni.
“The location’s perfect,” the gang leader was whispering. “Bellora Park, east quad.”
Missi frowned. “That’s not in Alewev.”
Chaloni shook his head impatiently. “Huh-uh—Shangside. Easy transport, lots of connections at the nearest station. Afterward, we can each of us get home six different ways. Safe and sane.”
Subar chose that moment to show both his smarts, and that he’d been paying attention. “You said you’d scoped ‘them.’”
The gang leader eyed him approvingly. “Uh-huh. There’s just two. A senior female and one male attendant who’s always with her.”
Zezula sounded uncertain. “‘Senior female’? What is she, some kind of government administrator?”
The fact that Chaloni was probably zoffing her did not keep him from utilizing the opportunity to display his superior knowledge, tinged with just a hint of disdain. “That’s how you refer to a female thranx past egg-laying prime.”
The two girls looked at one another. Dirran was startled into the kind of dumbfounded silence usually reserved for Sallow Behdul. It was left to Subar to voice what his companions were feeling.
“We’re going to scrim a pair of thranx?”
Chaloni’s tone had turned chill. He was all business now. “Why not? You got anything against cracking chitin instead of bone?”
Reflexively, Subar shook his head vigorously from side to side. He had seen thranx before. Not just on the tridee but also in person, though only rarely. They had little reason to visit Alewev District. There was nothing for them there. But on a bustling, perfervid world like Visaria, where business was ongoing around the clock and cred was being accumulated by the nanosecond, every sentient species whose culture allowed for the accrual of wealth by an individual, clan, family, or group had an interest in establishing a presence in the capital city. Humankind’s closest and most important allies within the Commonwealth, the insectoid thranx had a similar appreciation for affluence.
But to scrim one—or in this case, two—that was something Subar had never even imagined. As he sat pondering, his thoughts whirling, it was Zezula’s turn to press Chaloni further.
“Why thranx?” she inquired huskily. “I mean, I don’t have anything against it: a boost is a boost. But why bugs instead of bipeds?”
Chaloni nodded patiently, his body language showing that he had clearly anticipated the question. “Well for one thing, nobody’ll be expecting it.” His grin returned, twisted this time. “Show the media that we here in Alewev don’t discriminate. Bugs won’t be expecting it, either.” He fixed her with a mixture of sloe-eyed lust and testosterone-fueled dominance. “I told you, I scoped it. We’ll be in and out before anybody can raise an alarm.” Leaning back on the mist-chair, he folded his slender, muscular arms across his chest in a posture of youthful bravado.
“Thranx are always loaded with the latest stuff from Evoria and places like that. You know what we take off scrimmed locals. Imagine what we’re going to be offered for out of the ordinary offworld gear.”
“Weapons?” Missi sounded half thoughtful, half hesitant. She did not want to appear to be challenging Chaloni’s competency.
He took no offense. “Scoped the bugs three different mornings. Didn’t see anything like that. Doesn’t mean they’re not carrying. But if they are, the stuff’s not patent. It’s kind of hard to tell. They both wear the typical everyday bug body pouches across the lower thorax. No heavy gear, since near as I can figure the morning walks they take are just for exercise. Then they call private transport to take them back to their hive-hotel. But the packs look like they’re always full.”
His eyes glittered as he continued. “One morning, I saw them stop on the trail. The attending male kept pulling gear from his pouch and passing it to the female. Communications, body gloss sprayer, all kinds of stuff. All of it new and the latest. Probably a lot more stuff in each pouch. I hope he is carrying a gun. A bug weapon would be worth as much as everything else put together.” He took a long draft from his glass. “Just two bugs. Should be easy to take down.”
Startling everyone, Sallow Behdul spoke up. His tone was as mournful as his perpetually sorrowful expression. “You ever scrim a thranx, Chaloni?”
It took a moment for the gang leader to recover from his surprise at hearing Behdul voice a question. “Uh, no. So what? As long as we surprise ’em and make sure to cover the exits, it shouldn’t be any different from scrimming a human. C’mon, Sallow—you know bugs as well as anybody. They’re smaller than us, don’t weigh near as much. Grab one by the antennae and they’ll do anything you want.”
Behdul looked less than completely satisfied, but under Chaloni’s even stare elected not to comment further.
“You sure it won’t bring extra attention down on us?” Dirran inquired.
Chaloni shrugged. “What if it does? Alewev is where we live, Alewev is where we hide. We’re crossing district lines anyway. The police won’t know where we’re from. It’s not like we’re scrimming Quillp or some neutrals. These are just thranx, people. Our blessed friends. No bug deal.” He leaned forward again, obviously pleased with himself.
“And the best part of it is, being from offworld, they’re unlikely to hang around to help with identifications or testify in person. Visaria isn’t a tourist destination. This female’s probably on business here. That means she’s likely to have more business elsewhere. They’ll probably just take the loss as part of the cost of doing business on a less civilized human world and get on with their lives.”
Subar had to admit that Chaloni seemed to have thought of everything. Two thranx or two humans; what was the difference? They would ambush the female and her attendant during their morning walk, scrim what they carried on their person, and vanish into the park and the city streets. By the time their quarry recovered from the shock of the confrontation sufficiently to communicate what had happened, Subar and his friends would have scattered in six different directions.
His only real concern was the possibility of their action being observed, and recorded, by witnesses. But if Chaloni had scoped out prey this thoroughly, surely he would have chosen an appropriately secluded site, one that would conceal their activity from the sight of others who might be in the same area of the park at the same time. That was a leader’s job. Subar was good at following orders and taking action, but complex strategy still tended to confuse him. Not for much longer, though. He had no intention of challenging Chaloni directly. Instead, he intended to leapfrog the leader of the gang. Not for Subar the occasional zlip or scrim. His ambition was much greater.
There were criminal organizations whose tentacles reached deep into Alewev. Subar knew of them, had seen some of their representatives going about their business. They were adults, engaged in adult enterprises. Already he had initiated a few tentative contacts. Such organizations were always looking for new, eager, energetic recruits. This might well be his last outing with the gang. He had plans, Subar did. Intentions to move on to bigger, better, badder things.
But first, a brief morning excursion in Ballora Park. He needed some cred in order to make an important purchase. His share of the forthcoming boost should provide that. It would impress his prospective new employers considerably if he arrived soliciting employment in possession of his own gun. Chaloni and Dirran had theirs. He was old enough. A child’s finger could depress the operating button or trigger of a weapon as easily and effectively as that of an adult.
“Thaie, Subar!”
“What?” Blinking, he saw that everyone except Sallow Behdul was looking at him.
“Where you transposing to, kid?” Chaloni asked him.
If there was anything Subar hated worse than seeing Zezula let Chaloni paw her, it was being called kid. He did not show any reaction, of course. “Thinking about tomorrow.”
The gang leader sniffed. “Don’t hurt yourself. You do as you’re told; I’ll do the thinking.” Chaloni’s chest swelled as he peacocked. “That way we’ll all get out okay.”
“Sure thing, Chal,” Subar replied dutifully. “Whatever you say.”
They rendezvoused at the Yinstram nexus, where dozens of automated transport pods congregated in the early morning to solicit the business of those denizens of Alewev unfortunate enough to have to commute to their daily work. The subdued but steady chattering of citizens just waking up, devices offering services, and vendors both organic and mechanical made for a continuous hum of multiple consciousnesses doing their best to survive another day in Malandere.
Dawn was suitably dreary. That suited the gang just fine. Fog was ever the friend of the scrim-inclined. Selecting a pod of sufficient size, Chaloni swiped his coded (and aliased) card to pay passage for the six of them. Though some conversation ensued as the pod chose a transportation path and accelerated to its maximum allowable velocity, the gang was unusually subdued. While they had run plenty of successful scrims before, this was the first time they were going to opt one on a pair of nonhumans. It was not necessarily a cause for worry, but it certainly was something to think about.
None of them needed to see a sign marking the moment when they crossed into Shangside. One could tell just by looking around. The landscaping blossomed lush, the buildings became fancier, the public facilities were better kept. Ballora Park, where they exited the transport pod, was a shining example of everything Alewev District was not: clean, modern, accommodating, safe.
At least, it was safe until Subar and his friends arrived.
Having memorized the instructions and directions Chaloni had given them, they split up into pairs, the better to avoid attention. Not that there was anything illegal about half a dozen young youths from Alewev choosing to take in the delights of the park at sunrise, but any large nonfamily group ran the risk of attracting interest. To Subar’s expected chagrin, Chaloni went off with Zezula while Dirran and Missi made a second couple. That left Subar with a far less attractive partner in the shape of Sallow Behdul. At least, he muttered to himself as the two of them headed south along a public pathway, it would be peaceful until the moment chosen for the assault. Behdul would not talk unless spoken to.
Even this early, the park was occupied. Runners with slickshoes glided smoothly along paved paths and designated grassy lanes. All were human save for one ambitious Tolian, who compensated for his short legs and stride with boundless energy. Occasionally Subar and Sallow Behdul would break into a jog of their own. It was pure ploy, of course. He and his friends had neither the time nor the interest in running for fun. The whole idea struck Subar as a ludicrous waste of energy. One ran after something or away from someone. There was no other valid reason for the expenditure of energy. As it had been with the first primitive humans, so it was with him and his companions.
Because of the fog, the morning was humid as well as warm. Another, cooler time of year and no thranx would be outside unprotected, much less engaging in exercise. Summer was about the only season they could tolerate on Visaria. For them the humidity this time of year, Subar supposed as he wiped perspiration from his brow, more than made up for the dry air of fall and winter.
He took a moment to marvel at the beauties of the park. There was nothing like Ballora in the older, lower-working-class district of Alewev. Here, native vegetation was pruned and manicured. They passed a stand of slehwesht, the narrow bright red trunks glowing even in the fog, each woody stalk proudly sporting a maroon-and-green crown like a bouffant hairdo. Wire bushes had been planted in place of railings, and served the same purpose. Spurts of vapor rose from ponds occupied by air-breathing Visarian water-dwellers, while the occasional call of a multiarmed nalamode echoed from the orange trees.
Not all the plants were native. It was strange to see Terran macaques cavorting with native nalamodes, but despite their differences in origin and biology, simple simian and slightly more complex ’lamode had developed mutual respect, rarely coming into conflict. The macaques were experts at cropping leaves and fruit from the highest branches while the nalamodes, with their busy multiple limbs, kept the ground cover stirred up, exposing good things to eat on the park floor.
Not everything that moved through Ballora’s woods was real. Every visitor knew that the occasional tiger or gorilla, Hivehomian sesemp or flutine from Mantis, was nothing more than a clever sim. They were generated to give the park some juice, as well as for purposes of education. While visitors from an earlier age would have fled in panic at the sight of any one of the highly realistic sims, they posed no issues for contemporary visitors. Any child above the age of four could automatically tell a sim from a liv.
He was forced to wait impatiently while Sallow Behdul ducked into what appeared to be an ancient Visarian colony mound, but was actually an artfully camouflaged hygienic facility. The bigger youth took his time, leaving his companion to svitz nervously outside.
“Sorry,” an apologetic Behdul mumbled as he emerged.
“Sky it.” Subar picked up the pace. “Just so long as we’re not late.”
He was relieved when they found only Chaloni and Zezula waiting at the specified rendezvous point. Chaloni was gazing at the dark shine of the park’s biggest lake, watching the zinc-colored hantrans scampering after one another on the large island that occupied its heavily vegetated center. Having removed her day slippers, Zezula was dangling her feet in the water, letting uoas pick at her toes with their darting, acquisitive tongues. Subar and Sal’s arrival meant that they were still waiting on Dirran and Missi.
Keeping his distance as he alternated his attention between the water and the sealed walking path behind them, Subar addressed Chaloni without looking in the other youth’s direction.
“You don’t think Dirran and Miz Mis got spined and vented on us, do you?”
Chaloni’s expression was rigid. “Look to your right, fool. Under the big bell tree.”
Subar complied, and was mortified to see that Dirran and Missi were already present. They lay entwined in each other’s arms underneath the solid, transparent dome of the native growth, pretending to be zoffing. Or maybe they weren’t pretending. Regardless, it meant that he and Behdul were, after all, the delays.
“Sal had to void,” he mumbled. It was a poor pretext for showing up late, and he knew it. Whether it was enough to excuse them Subar never knew, because Chaloni suddenly tensed. Zezula pulled her feet out of the water without having to be told to do so. The six friends were no longer alone by the little cove.
Emerging from the fog, two idiosyncratic shapes were coming up the pathway toward them. Hundreds of years ago, their size and shape would have spread terror and alarm among any humans who happened to see them. Nowadays their appearance was as familiar to Subar and his companions as that of their own kind.
Though beginning to shade into the lavender, the senior female’s chitin was still a bright, if clouded, aquamarine. Both sets of vestigial wings had been removed, indicating that she had mated at some time in the past. Her companion was slightly smaller, an intense male blue, and still flaunted both sets of useless if decorative wings. Traveling at either a fast walk or a slow trot, they advanced on all sixes, utilizing their second set of forward limbs as legs. Both truhands were held out in front and bent sharply at the elbow. Even at a distance and through the mist one could see their four sets of breathing spicules pulsing methodically on their flexible b-thoraxes. Red-banded gold-colored compound eyes gazed forward while occasional flicks of feathery antennae sent accumulated moisture flying. They did not, of course, sweat. Not only did they not possess pores; they did not have skin.
Chaloni was delighted to see that for this morning’s jaunt both wore not only thorax pouches but small backpacks as well. The promise of that much more property to boost was to the gang leader’s senses like spoiled meat to a homeless dog. Giving Zezula a hand up, he nodded at Subar and Sallow Behdul to take up their assigned stations. Having unlocked themselves, Dirran and Missi were already moving out from beneath the bell tree.
As the young humans split up, the two thranx continued toward them, unaware they were the object of incipient threatening attention. Affecting flippancy, Subar and Behdul wandered into position to the left of the pathway. Hand in hand, Chaloni and Zezula remained by the shore of the lake. As the thranx passed them, Dirran and Missi lengthened their stride as they closed off the route from behind.
Everything was going perfectly, Subar felt as he and Behdul abruptly changed direction. The two of them closed the gap between themselves and Chaloni and Zezula as Dirran and Missi closed in behind the unaware nonhumans. There was no one else in sight. It was quiet, the fog just starting to lift around them.
Confronted by the four young humans, the two thranx halted. While the senior female waited, the male advanced. Lifting his foothands off the ground, he held all four forward limbs close in front of him as he raised his upper body. His glistening head now topped out at just over a meter and a half, with the antennae thrusting higher. Fingering the collapsed blade resting in his pant pocket, Subar felt more confident than ever. Even he was taller and heavier than this nascent victim. His nostrils were suffused with the creature’s natural perfume. Their body odors stimulated by exercise, both thranx smelled like ambulatory bouquets of expensive flowers.
The male executed a couple of complex hand gestures that meant nothing to the Alewev-wise but galactically unsophisticated youths. It then addressed them in somewhat rough but perfectly comprehensible terranglo.
“You are blocking the path. Should we around go, or is there some difficulty?”
Taking a step forward, Chaloni unlimbered his gun. Short, stubby, and fashioned of molded, hardened fibers that were a dull ivory in hue, it looked no less lethal for the shortness of its barrel.
“You know what this is, bug?”
The male eyed the gun. At least, Subar thought he eyed it. Given their huge compound eyes, it was difficult to tell sometimes just what a thranx was looking at. “A weapon.”
“Fires shells that penetrate and then explode.” As his companions drew closer and flashed their own weapons, the gang leader made hand-over motions with his free hand. “Give us your pouches and packs and nobody loses any lenses. Now!”
The male turned to look at the senior female, who had not spoken. She gestured, he gestured back, she gestured again. Glancing around, Chaloni was not yet nervous—but he was growing impatient.
“Quick-step! And no more hand-talk!” He gestured with the muzzle of the ominous little pistol. “Dirran—maybe if you gave the lady’s right antenna a quick trim?”
Nodding, the grim-faced youth stepped forward, brandishing his own blade. It was bigger than Subar’s, an unfolded arc of sharpened, fine-edged fiber.
“We will give you our possessions,” the male declared hastily. “No violence!”
“That’s better. Hurry it up!” Chaloni nodded tersely at Zezula, who flicked off the stunbar she was holding, pocketed it, and stepped forward. His movements visibly jumpy, the male was unfastening the fabricine pack from the female’s back. Turning, he dropped it, inclined forward to pick it up, dropped it again. Chaloni grinned at his unease while behind the thranx Dirran nudged Missi and shared a whispered joke. Both enjoyed a laugh at the jittery insectoid’s expense. Finally finding a grip on the female’s pack with a truhand, the male transferred it to a stronger foothand and gave it to the impatiently waiting Zezula.
Right in the face.